okay for the first part i'll just quote my other comment: "the term you're looking for when you say "equal rights advocate" is actually egalitarian, which is an absolutely lovely thing in itself. however, i think feminism is a far better term to use. this is because when you choose to call yourself an egalitarian instead of a feminist, you are overlooking thousands of years of women's oppression. instead of acknowledging the existence of male privilege, you use a gender-neutral term to describe a problem which disproportionately affects women over men. you have officially missed the point."
feminism is not used to get ahead in life. misogyny basically puts women back a few steps, to put it simply, and we're just trying to reclaim that ground. feminism never works to get ahead of men, and if you could provide me with an example where it does, that would be lovely : )
(also we shouldnt have to change what we identify as just because feminism has a bad name with people who have not researched what it really does and just use it to describe women who are being terrible people) thanks